


start again, start again

by knightswatch



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Character Death, Destiny, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multiple Universes, Non-Chronological, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:56:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightswatch/pseuds/knightswatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His lips part slightly, revealing sharp fangs lurking underneath. Hajime can feel his eyes going round and surprised, and while the tension weaves thick between them, he finds himself sitting frozen.</p><p>One thread pulls and it all unravels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	start again, start again

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Iwaoi day!
> 
>  
> 
> Please trust me.

_"Destiny is a worrying concept.  
I don’t want to be fated, I want to choose." _  
-Jeanette Winterson

 

* * *

Hajime wants to tell himself that it wasn't supposed to turn out this way. That somewhere along the way, all the choices that both of them could have made, there was another option.

There isn't space between him and Tooru for compromise anymore, but Hajime wants there to be. They oppose one another like two magnetic forces, resisting every attempt to be pushed an inch closer together.

He's not the boy Hajime grew up with. Tooru is a king. Tooru isn't a boy—isn't even a human now.

There are horns on either side of his head, fingers ending in sharp claws, red eyes, fangs lurking beneath his lips. He's grinning, wide and stretched across his face, shallow. Hajime knows him too well to believe it. Tooru doesn't have armor or a weapon, but his claws have still torn a slice into Hajime's cheek, leaving blood trickling down the side of his face, rivers around the clenched muscles of his jaw.

Hajime does have armor. He does have a weapon—a sword, almost as long as he is tall, gripped in both hands. There isn't space in this fight for him to have the sympathy for Tooru that he does, there isn't space for the way it feels like there's a hole torn open in his chest, ragged and raw—the space of an open wound prodded restlessly by Hajime's mind, torn wider and wider by his refusal to leave it alone.

Tooru is on him, quick as a whisper, but with all the power of two force fields crashing together, their shared refusal to yield ground. He's laughing, the sound screeching like claws over the metal of Hajime's sword, ringing in his ears. Hajime stumbles a step, caught by the frantic light in Tooru's eyes.

He smiles still.

There's blood in his mouth, running past his teeth, the sword in Hajime's hands punching a hole through Tooru in return. He accepts it with barely a shudder of breath, something soft, entrancing.

Hajime wishes he would stop smiling.

“You're going to be a hero,” he says it like a promise—it's always been a promise. Diametrically opposed. He's going to be a hero because Tooru is a villain.

He doesn't want to be this kind of hero.

Tooru pitches forward, the sword sliding out of his chest as smoothly as if it were oiled when Hajime draws it back. He drops the blade and catches Tooru instead. It's not that he forgets that they're supposed to be enemies, that he's supposed to be wary of this man—Tooru isn't so close to death that he couldn't take Hajime with him if wanted to.

He couldn't bear to let Tooru slip away alone.

“You're so _stupid_ ,” he pushes the words into Tooru's hair, eyes closed, the strands soft against his face. “Why didn't you let me help you?”

“You couldn't,” Tooru shakes his head, and Hajime isn't sure if he hears the sound of him laughing or coughing blood against the polished surface of the armor where his cheek is resting. His arms are around Hajime's sides as well, holding on weakly, his shoulders shaking. “This is how it's supposed to go.”

He shakes his head sharply, trying not to squeeze him tighter, some foolish desire not to _hurt_ him.

Tooru is _dying_ and Hajime is scared of holding onto him too tightly. It's poetic, in a bitter sort of way.

There are tears on his face, and he sinks the two of them to their knees, pushing his face further into Tooru's hair for a moment before lifting to look at Tooru's face instead. He wants to kiss Tooru, even with the fangs in his mouth, the blood smeared around it. His smile is shaking at the corners, and it's a wonder he's held it there for this long, especially with the tears starting to gather in his eyes. There's a clarity to them, and he lets the last shreds of his smile fall off, reaching a bloodied hand to touch the side of Hajime's face.

It's a soft touch, skin to skin, rather than the bite of claws and tear of flesh. Tooru hiccups a pained noise, shaking his head. “I'm _sorry,_ Hajime. I'm sorry.”

Hajime leans into the touch of his fingers, bending until their foreheads touch together, tasting the breath that rattles out of his lungs. “I should've saved you.”

Tooru laughs, strained, wheezing at the end, but he shakes his head. “You are.”

His voice cracks into a sob before he can force anything out to respond, and Tooru's eyes close.

* * * 

“I can't believe you forgot your wallet,” Hajime sighs, looking over his shoulder with a glare. Oikawa blinks at him before his face catches into a grin, completely unapologetic. “I should let you starve.”

“You wouldn't,” he gasps, putting a hand to his chest in faked offense. There aren't dark circles under his eyes, but Hajime also knows that he wears makeup to cover them and that Oikawa has his glasses in his bag. He lets Oikawa set his armful of snacks onto the counter anyway, rolling his eyes at all the obnoxious sweets that supposedly help him study.

“Couldn't you get one of your fans to buy you all that crap?” His purchases probably aren't much healthier, but at least, there's something other than pure sugar. Oikawa seems to consider it for a moment but shrugs his shoulders after some thought.

“That wouldn't be fair, would it? It's not like I'm leading them on,” he pauses, not long enough to be called a hesitation really. “Besides, I have _you_ to take care of me.”

Hajime huffs a laugh at just how unfortunately true that is. He'll probably make sure Oikawa eats, at least, _one_ of his protein bars, along with something suitable for dinner. He'll stay up late so he can text Oikawa and scold him to shut his light off.

He laughs, really, because he doesn't mind those things at all.

Everything tucked safely into their bags, they leave the convenience store closest to Aoba Johsai to walk home. There's a comfortable closeness in the way they walk, a level of practiced familiarity that ends in shoulder bumping and good-natured growling on Hajime's part. It's been the routine of their Monday afternoons for years, though, and they wind up in a heap on the floor of Oikawa's room with books spread out in front of them, picking answers from one another.

Oikawa puts his face flat into his math textbook and groans, squeezing his eyes shut and kicking his legs dramatically in the air. “None of this makes sense!”

“Oi,” Hajime grumbles, rolling his eyes at Oikawa's theatrics. He's not great at math either, and usually, when he's struggling he drags Matsukawa's lazy ass into tutoring him, but Oikawa perks his head back up with a pout and a sigh.

“If you don't help me I'll die, Iwa-chan,” he announces, flailing his arms out to either side. Hajime is struggling to keep frowning rather than laughing, pulling Oikawa's book closer to himself instead and looking over the page with a hum.

“What're you struggling with?” He asks since he certainly can't explain the whole thing. He's not sure he could explain it all to himself. Oikawa balances his chin on his hands, leaning into Hajime's space to peek at the pages as well. He doesn't shift away from the intrusion, too used to having Oikawa so close to him to really feel the need to do anything about it.

“Number sixteen,” he points to the problem, leaning his cheek on Hajime's shoulder. Hajime nods, grabbing his own worksheet and trying to explain how _he_ found the answer.

True to form, Oikawa picks up on it halfway through the explanation and discovers that Hajime had the wrong answer to begin with. Hajime threatens to hit him for all his gloating about such a simple fact and Oikawa laughs but helps him with the rest of them anyway.

* * * 

At ten, Hajime already knows the kind of man that he's going to be. The Iwaizumi family have _always_ been knights, for as long as the Oikawa family has had power in the land. And so, at ten, Hajime _knows_ he's also going to be a knight. He's going to protect Tooru, to help him make good choices and be a wise leader.

However, at ten, Tooru isn't yet wise, and he doesn't always make good choices. He tugs on Hajime's hand, pulling him deeper into the forest, laughing as the summer light between the trees makes a dappled pattern of leaves on his skin. They're both bronze from spending so many hours outside, between riding and learning to fight and sneaking out of the palace like this to play in the forest. There are lighter brown streaks in Tooru's hair and Hajime has freckles on his face from the sun.

“I wanna go for a swim,” Tooru announces, skipping ahead without the courtesy of waiting for Hajime to catch up with him. Hajime rolls his eyes and jogs after the small prince, biting a scold to the back of his tongue. Tooru never listens to him anyway (and a swim _does_ sound like fun). They've snuck out of the palace together hundreds of times, always through the cracked old gate in the south courtyard that no one has ever bothered to fix.

The forest wraps around the south and west sides of the palace, with a river cutting through it. They've never gone so deep that Hajime has to worry about getting lost, and today is no different. He catches up with Tooru and grabs his hand, lacing their fingers together with a snort. “Don't run off.”

“I'm not,” Tooru sticks his tongue out but squeezes Hajime's hand tighter. He's never actually tried to run away from Hajime—they're best friends, partners. They're already meant to be together forever. The river is easy to find, and releasing hands, Tooru hops his way down the rocky bank while Tooru follows him more slowly, shaking his head.

“Be careful!” He hisses, and Tooru laughs. Sometimes Tooru teases him about being an old man already, but Hajime just punches him for it usually. His _job_ is to worry about keeping Tooru safe, he can't exactly help that.

Tooru sticks his tongue out when Hajime finally reaches the pebbled beach that slides into the gentle flow of the river, pulling his shirt over his head and dropping it on the rocks before diving into the water. He bobs up again a moment later, shaking damp hair out of his eyes and laughing. “Hurry up, Hajime-chan.”

Hajime sighs, pulling his own shirt off and kicking his shoes off next to where Tooru's are already laying. It rained recently—the whole forest made clean and new with it, and the first lap of water on Hajime's toes is colder than he expects. Laughing, Tooru swims further into the river, stopping in the middle with a grin lighting up his face. “You're never gonna catch me like that.”

“Who says I _want_ to catch you?” He shoots back, pausing when he's waist deep in the water. Tooru smiles still, treading water and shaking his head.

“That's the game! You have to catch me,” he says it like it's obvious, and Hajime shrugs and dives under with the intent of swimming to the middle as well. Tooru is always making games out of nowhere, and this is no surprise to Hajime. The rules tend to be whatever suits him, it seems, and they start and stop with no real warning.

He feels something wrong as soon as he comes up for air. An unfamiliar tug around his ankles, cold water tickling around his legs. Tooru blinks at him, obviously wondering why he stopped when Hajime shakes his head, looking down at the water like the can divine the source of the strange feeling from it.

“Ha-ji-me-chan,” Tooru drags his name out into whining syllables, splashing water with a frustrated sigh. “C'mon! Do you not wanna play?”

“Come back over here,” he tries to make his voice strict. His father has always told him that a knight needs to trust in himself. Tooru frowns slightly, kicking so he's slightly closer, wrinkling his nose.

“You can't _trick_ me,” he pouts, and Hajime shakes his head once again, paddling forward to try and catch Tooru's arm and haul him back. The wrong feeling in the middle of his chest is stronger, and if he can pull Tooru out they can play somewhere else.

And then the water swallows Tooru under.

Hajime sucks in a lungful of air before diving down after him. He forces his eyes open, looking for the familiar shape of Tooru through the murky gloom. He finds him, a few feet ahead, with sickly green weeds wrapped around his ankles and his mouth open in a silent, shocked yell. Hajime flounders over to him, slapping his hand over Tooru's mouth quickly to stop him from swallowing more water. Tooru's mouth closes under his hand, but he stares at Hajime with round eyes, clawing at his shoulders in desperation.

Hajime shakes his head and forces himself to sink lower, tearing at the weeds holding Tooru down with his fingers. They feel stronger than they should, and by the time he has one of Tooru's legs free, his own lungs are _burning_ for air. There are spots in his vision as Tooru twists and bends to help yank the other free.

His feet kick, pushing him up to the surface and out of Hajime's blackening vision.

He opens his eyes to Tooru's hands pounding on his chest, coughing out water that makes his throat burn. There's giggling, and he knows it's not coming from Tooru since he can see the redness of his eyes and the snot clinging to his face from crying. Instead, just past Tooru's shoulder, is a pair of nymphs laughing at them.

Seeing his eyes open, Tooru pitches forward and wraps his arms tightly around Hajime's neck. There are still little, hiccuping sobs shaking his shoulders. “H- Hajime—I'm sorry.”

Patting one hand against Tooru's damp back, Hajime shakes his head. “Are you okay?”

“Y- yes,” Tooru leans back, wiping his nose on his arm and sniffling. “Y- you saved me but then you didn't come back up for air and I had to pull you out. I s- should have listened—”

Hajime shakes his head once more, leaning it against Tooru's shoulder and hugging him in return. “It's okay. Calm down now, it's okay.”

* * *

_How am I supposed to be myself without you?_

Hajime hasn't come up with an answer to that question. Yahaba bows in front of the team and Hajime joins the rest of them in applauding, cracking a small grin at Matsukawa and Hanamaki's overblown whistling and cheering. It makes Yahaba's cheeks go pink, and Oikawa claps him on the shoulder. “Ignore those animals, Shi-chan!”

With Yahaba officially pronounced as captain, Oikawa takes a seat next to Hajime, bumping their shoulders together as he does. The smile on his face is genuine, a fact that's a little surprising. He's happy to see it, though, and Hajime's own shoulders relax a little further.

Yahaba gives his speech a little awkwardly, but this time, he laughs at the overblown cheering he gets in response. They pack the nets up, and Hajime hesitates just outside the doors when Oikawa joins him. Taking a slow breath to steady himself, he nods. “That's it then. Time for the big reveal, right?”

Oikawa hesitates before nodding his head and digging in his bag to produce his letter of acceptance. Hajime laughs, because he didn't bring anything of the sort and shakes his head. “Just tell me where you're going.”

“Tokyo,” Oikawa rubs the back of his head, and his smile shakes at the edges. So much for the hope that destiny would just stick them in the same place if they left it to chance. Hajime shakes his head and Oikawa's shoulders slump.

“Osaka,” he sighs softly, deciding not to pretend that he can't taste the disappointment on the back of his tongue. It's not forever, he knows. Keeping the two of them apart forever would be impossible. “They have a great coaching program, and I'll still be playing volleyball, so…”

Oikawa nods, and he takes a breath to steady himself as well, to stop the tears that are starting to form in his eyes. He holds his fist out, and Hajime lifts his as well to press their knuckles together, nodding his head. “You'll always be my partner, you know? You're incredible, and that's not going to change.”

He waits, lets the uncommon praise melt Oikawa just a little before he grins. “I'll still beat you, though.”

“Bring it on,” Oikawa laughs, dropping his hand. Hajime taps his knuckles against Oikawa's shoulder and they turn, walking home together as always.

* * * 

If he wasn't so sure of the path, Hajime wouldn't believe this was the castle he grew up in. The once strong walls have been swamped with black ivy, creeping all the way to the top. There's a choking taste in the air, something that pervades its way from Hajime's lungs to his very core—a blackness that wraps around him and seems utterly inescapable.

It’s not his home anymore. He is an intruder on these grounds, and the charred, blackened grass crunches under the soles of his boots as he walks. There aren’t archers manning the top of the walls, and perhaps Tooru thought the wall of ivy, whatever its purpose, would be enough to stop him.

Or perhaps this is his way of making Hajime welcome—perhaps he knows as well that one of them isn’t going to walk away from this

It is not, Hajime knows, the time to reflect on the things that he and Tooru used to be. It's a test of his resolve—striding the same grounds where they grew up together, past the stable where he had his first kiss, what used to be the gardens that Tooru's mother kept.

None of it is the same as it used to be. It's like the whole world has sensed the change between the two of them, the irrevocable nature of it, and torn away the foundation of what they used to be. It's a reminder—that there is no going back from here.

Hajime is here to kill Tooru, not to save him. That is the thing that matters on these grounds. The gate meant to stop him isn't even locked and easily gives way to his first push. The echo of his footsteps is lonely in the emptiness of the hall and he doesn't have to wonder about where Tooru is. He's far from hiding.

The throne has also been covered in the same black ivy, blending into the silk of his robes. Tooru looks at him with a wide smile on his face, fangs bright and sharp in his mouth. He's leaning slightly forward, like Hajime's arrival is a moment of great interest to him, and the curve of his horns casts a sharp shadow on the angle of his cheeks.

“Hajime,” there's a warmth in his voice, and the cadence of his name is so familiar that Hajime's chest aches. “Welcome home.”

This place isn't his home anymore. Tooru isn't home anymore.

* * * 

After they've sent the rest of the team home, Hajime finds himself starting at the profile of Oikawa's face. He isn't smiling, which is a small blessing, but Hajime still has the sense that his real feelings are hiding under the surface.

His own eyes are still itching with the pressure of tears behind them. The words, when they leave his throat, feel thick and heavy. “Next year.”

Oikawa pauses, the even rhythm of his footsteps faltering, and it takes a moment for Hajime to realize he hasn't started walking again, turning to meet Oikawa's gaze. His lips are drawn into a tight line and there’s a furrow between his brows. “Do you mean that?”

“Of course, I do,” Hajime resists the urge to roll his eyes, nodding his head. There’s something in Oikawa’s expression, even if Hajime can’t put a name to what, that reads of disbelief. Hajime takes a step closer, folding his arms over his chest with a little snort. The sun is starting to go down behind Oikawa’s head, ringing his shoulders with a mantle of orange and gold. “Were you planning on losing again?”

“We haven’t talked about what schools we’re going to,” Oikawa’s voice is small when he says it, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jersey. Hajime wonders how much longer either of them will fit into the blue and white Kitagawa Daiichi uniforms that he’s used to seeing. 

It’s true that they haven’t yet talked about high school together, but it’s not as if Hajime has been avoiding the subject. In truth, he thought it was something so obvious that it didn’t need to be named.

“Aoba Johsai, right?” He grins when Oikawa nods his head. Hajime would probably be the only person to describe someone as perceptive as Oikawa Tooru as ‘oblivious’. “Where else would I go then? We’re partners.”

He expects Oikawa to grin back at him, to laugh along with the declaration like he usually does, but instead, the corners of his lips begin to quiver, and tears well in his eyes until they overflow. Hajime sighs, softly, just for himself, before taking the final step and wrapping his arm around Oikawa’s shoulders. “Hey. What’s wrong with you now, idiot?”

“N- nothing,” Oikawa’s voice cracks on the word and Hajime rolls his eyes. Oikawa leans into the half-embrace, rubbing at his eyes and choking out a laugh. “I’m happy. I didn’t want Iwa-chan to leave me.”

“I’m not going to _leave you_ ,” he sighs, ruffling his hand through Oikawa’s hair to make a mess of it before dropping his arm. “We’re best friends, it doesn’t work like that.”

* * * 

Like most fools, Hajime didn’t catch onto the trick until it was too late.

Too late, as it turns out, is when he wakes up in the bed that he and Tooru share to find Tooru perched on the edge of it, staring at himself in a mirror. His back is turned, and at first, Hajime is unsure of what he might be doing.

And then the tail that connects to the base of Tooru’s sways in the air in front of him. The quick, whip-like motion of it startles Hajime more than the actual tail itself, and reflex makes him flinch back from it.

There are pronounced bumps under the pale skin of Tooru’s back, ones that Hajime knows aren’t normal or natural. They look almost like black stones trying to break free of his skin, shadowing it dark from beneath. The flinch draws Tooru’s attention back to him, and he whips around, the mirror falling out of his shaking hands and shattering on the stones of the floor. 

At first, Hajime’s instinct is to reach out. To cup his hand around the swell of Tooru’s cheek and comfort him, strange new tail and all. But, the face staring back at him isn’t familiar and he hesitates. Tooru’s eyes are rimmed red from crying, but the iris of them has darkened to crimson as well. His lips part slightly, revealing sharp fangs lurking underneath. Hajime can feel his eyes going round and surprised, and while the tension weaves thick between them, he finds himself sitting frozen.

One thread pulls and it all unravels.

“H- Hajime,” his voice stumbles through the name and now Hajime does lean forward, does take Tooru’s face between both of his hands so he can stare into the red of his eyes. Tooru leans back like he wants to escape. “Wait, it isn’t--”

“I knew this was going to happen,” his voice rumbles from the center of his chest in a snarl, and he refuses to let go, even when Tooru’s fingers wrap around his wrists. “I _told_ you, Tooru.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Tooru shoots back, frowning slightly. There’s a light in his eyes, building slowly, widening them in a way that makes something in Hajime’s chest squirm. “It’s a small price to pay, isn’t it? It’s so much _power_ , Hajime. I could probably change myself back, even, if that’s what you want.”

“What I want is for you to stop this,” Hajime snorts, dropping his hands now. He tilts Tooru’s chin up instead, using his thumb to part Tooru’s lips and frown at the sharpness of the fangs. “It’s going to tear you apart. You need to find a way to break whatever deal you made with this _thing_.”

Tooru leans back sharply like Hajime’s slapped him. 

“What will being _weak_ fix?” He snarls the word out like it’s the worst thing imaginable, and hearing it makes Hajime feel sick. He pushes himself up now, pulling the first shirt that his hands touch over his head. It’s not often that he feels the need to get away from Tooru, but the restlessness burning in his blood won’t allow him to sit still.

“You’ve _never_ been weak,” he snaps, and when Tooru scoffs at him like he thinks Hajime is _lying_ , he finds himself turning towards the door. 

Tooru is silent when he leaves, and it leaves a bitter, lingering taste in the back of Hajime’s throat.

He doesn’t go back.

* * * 

“Have you heard from Tooru lately?” It’s an innocent question, asked by his mother while Hajime downs a bottle of water after his jog. His best answer is a shrug, because _no, he hasn’t_ but he hasn’t had the time or energy to change that fact. Her face is blurry on the screen of his laptop, wrinkling slightly with concern.

“Just been busy,” he sighs, wondering if he _should_ try to make more time to chase down Oikawa. It’s not his job anymore if it ever was, but it’s impossible to deny the fact that he misses his best friend. “I’ll try and call him in awhile, though.”

“Good. It would be terrible to see the two of you drift apart.”

 _Awhile_ ends up being after he’s finished talking to his mother, taken a shower, and lost himself in two hours of homework for his early childhood psychology course. He’s half asleep when he remembers he even _wanted_ to call Oikawa.

He pulls the contact up on his cellphone as he tumbles into bed, listening to the ringer with his eyes closed.

“Iwa-chan! I was just about to file a missing person report!” He sounds chipper, bright as ever, and just the tone is enough to make Hajime smile, no matter how tired he is.

“Shut up. You haven’t called _me_ either,” it’s a playful dig, and he doesn’t mean it to sound scolding, but Oikawa sighs softly.

“I know. I’m sorry about that,” there’s a pause, the soft tail of a sigh before Oikawa says anything else. “So! Tell me about your classes.”

The question makes Hajime groan, and he describes them the best he can, interrupting himself to yawn. Strange as it seems, he can _feel_ Oikawa grinning at him as he talks. He still knows when to brace himself for the teasing and the ‘Iwa-chans’.

“Sounds hard for someone with no brain like you,” Oikawa laughs and Hajime rolls his eyes, trying to come up with something to shoot back at him. Oikawa beats him to it, though. “I want you to come visit soon!”

“When is soon? It’s the middle of the semester, dumbass,” Hajime snorts, not that he’s _actually_ opposed. Oikawa hums, and there’s the sound of shuffling papers.

“Oh! There’s a long weekend in a few weeks, maybe then?” He sounds hopeful, but Hajime groans.

“Tournament that weekend.”

They go back and forth over dates, plans to meet halfway, or maybe when they both get a chance to go home next. In the end, Hajime falls asleep with the phone pressed to his face before they come up with a single day that could work, and when he wakes up it’s to his alarm blaring directly into his ear.

* * * 

Tooru’s shoulders are shaking. It’s a strange thing for Hajime to fixate on in the moment, but he can’t pull his attention away from the slight tremble in them. He’s stopped protesting at this point, and instead, he’s leaning his back against the wall of the small cellar that Tooru has dragged them both to, watching him paint a wide circle around himself.

“This would go faster if you stopped sulking,” Tooru mumbles without looking up at him, and Hajime rolls his eyes at that, shaking his head.

“I don’t want this to happen _at all_ ,” he taps one finger restlessly against the swell of his bicep, watching as Tooru finishes his circle, leaning back to grab the candles he has settled by his knees, using them to mark five points around himself. Every candle is black, except for the sixth which still rests next to Tooru’s thigh.

“What other options do we have, Hajime?” He does look over his shoulder now, face serious. Hajime holds his tongue, not because he doesn’t have an answer to that, but because the manic light in Tooru’s eyes is worrying, just like the heavy circles under his eyes.

He hasn’t slept since news of his father’s death. Hajime knows, because he’s spent every night in Tooru’s room, trying to lull him to sleep, comforting him through the nightmares that destroy the brief spells of rest that he _does_ get.

He wants to tell Tooru what he has a thousand times since they were children; that he’ll be a good king. But this… the plan that Tooru has concocted to win the war that left their country ravaged and both of them without fathers.

This is not the path of a _good king_.

But they’re here, both of them, following the research that Tooru has managed to unearth about binding a spirit to himself to make him strong, to give him _magic_. 

This is how Hajime knows he’s a weak man--they’re here, walking this path together.

This is how Hajime knows that he is not a knight.

Tooru begins lighting the candles when Hajime doesn’t answer him, and he finds himself tensing. Spread next to him, written neatly on sheet upon sheet of paper, is the spell that Tooru found to summon the spirit that he wants. It’s a simple plan; summon the spirit, bind it, win the war and then release it once again.

He lights the sixth candle, the white one before he begins reading. It’s a language that Hajime doesn’t understand, one he had no idea that Tooru could speak or read, even. Something ancient, that makes Hajime’s head throb just from having heard the words out loud. Tooru doesn’t stop reading, even as the air thickens around them, cloying and heavy to the point where it’s hard for Hajime to even draw breath.

Tooru doesn’t stop reading until a black column of smoke rises in front of him, bending and leaning toward his body, flowing into his mouth and nose until it’s gone. Tooru’s body goes rigid for a moment before he pitches to the side, laying flat on the stone floor.

Hajime doesn’t think before he springs forward, crossing the threshold of the circle and lifting Tooru’s body into his arms, on his knees so that Tooru can lay across his lap. He presses two fingers to feel the frantic fluttering of his pulse, light as the beating of a bird’s wings. He keeps them pressed there, listening to his own harsh, panicked breathing overtake the soft sound of Tooru’s breath ghosting past his lips, the rise and fall of his chest almost lost in the shape of his robes.

After what seems like much too long a time, Tooru blinks his eyes open and stares up at Hajime.

He smiles.

* * * 

At first, Hajime doesn’t even realize he’s lost control of things.

It happens slowly at first--a few assignments slip past him, there are nights when he can’t manage to get himself to bed before he has to go to class, his effort in volleyball slips just slightly.

And then all at once, he’s floundering under tests, and assignments, and quizzes, and volleyball games until he’s forgotten everything else. All at once there’s a letter from the school administration about his scholarship. All at once, he’s lost control of everything. There's a dozen missed texts from Oikawa on his phone, and it’s not until he wakes up on a Saturday morning that he actually realizes what he’s forgotten.

 **Shittykawa**  
> _caught a cab from the train station, since iwa-chan was too sleepy ｡゜(｀Д´)゜｡_ (9:47)

He doesn’t even reply to the message, just bolts out of bed in a desperate attempt to shower and clean the piles of forgotten work off his desk, or, at least, to make them less evident. It makes his ears burn with the realization, feeling a bright, unfamiliar flicker of shame in his chest.

It’s not often that he hides things from Oikawa.

There’s banging on his door before he finishes and he sets the papers in his hands down with a groan, opening the door just as Oikawa calls for him. “Yahoo! Iwa-chan!”

“Hey,” he rubs the back of his neck when Oikawa smiles down at him, turning his face slightly to the side and coughing into his shoulder. “S- sorry I didn’t make it to come get you.”

“Well. You’re still not much of a morning person,” Oikawa shrugs his shoulders, letting himself in and stepping out of his shoes. He looks around the room with interest, a small, pleased smile on his face when he catches sight of the photo sitting on Hajime’s nightstand.

It’s an old one, one stolen from his family photo album, of the two of them. They’re standing on the beach, arms wrapped around one another. Hajime has a volleyball tucked under his arm and Oikawa is making one of his signature peace signs, smiling as wide as possible despite the missing front tooth that he’d been so sensitive about at the time. 

The same photo used to sit tucked to the back of Hajime’s desk at home, almost forgotten until he was packing up for school and decided it was something he had to take with him.

But Oikawa’s attention drifts away from the photo to the pile of papers on Hajime’s desk, blinking at them. “Ah! Iwa-chan is never so messy.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” he grumbles, trying to think of something sufficient to distract from it. It’s strange, the knowledge that he doesn’t want Oikawa to _know_ that he’s having a hard time. Oikawa starts rifling through the pages anyway, humming at them.

Hajime finds himself snarling, taking a step forward and grabbing at Oikawa’s wrist. “Oi! Leave those alone.”

“I’m looking for your love letters! I’m sure you’re getting lots, right?” He flashes a grin but bats Hajime’s hand away easily, and Hajime sighs. He knows the paper that Oikawa has in his hands all too well. He’s spent too much time staring at it not to have every crease and stroke memorized

“It’s just… school stuff,” he turns away again, and now Oikawa sets the pages down with a sigh. The weight of him draping himself over Hajime’s back is a surprise, coupled with the way he nuzzles their cheeks together.

“And here everyone thought they had to be worrying about _me_ ,” Oikawa grumbles, tightening his grip when Hajime makes an effort to shrug him off.

“You _don’t_ need to worry about me,” he snaps, feeling his ears burn, the heat spreading from the tips of them over his cheeks. There’s no real point in lying to someone like Oikawa though, and Hajime knows it. “I’ll work it out.”

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa sighs, shaking his head. “You’re such a dummy, you don’t have to do everything all on your own.”

“You know,” Oikawa keeps talking with his cheek pressed against Hajime’s, voice low. “I feel like I should’ve told you this before you left.”

“Told me what?” He tries to turn, to see the expression on Oikawa’s face, but only winds up being squeezed tighter for it.

“But I wanted you to pick a school based on what you wanted to do, not based on me,” he’s nervous, it’s not hard for Hajime to sense it. He clears his throat and his breath flutters past the shell of Hajime’s ear, and his stomach is contracting tighter and tighter like a serpent is wrapping around it. He opens his mouth and seems to choke on the words he wants to say. He tilts his head so his face is buried in the crook of Hajime’s shoulder, voice muffled by it. “I’m in love with you, you know.”

Hajime freezes.

In some ways, maybe he’s always known, even if he never thought either of them would approach the topic so plainly. In some ways he’s probably always known that he’s in love with Oikawa, and while they saw each other every day it seemed less important to confront that fact.

But the lack of Oikawa in his life has been a sore ache in the center of his chest for months, and it seems so foolishly easy to soothe with him _here_.

To his surprise, Hajime laughs. He tilts his head back against Oikawa’s shoulder and _laughs_. Oikawa pulls back sharply, eyes wide as he stalks around to face Hajime, ready to yell about his feelings being laughed at, probably.

Hajime doesn’t wait for it. He wraps his hand around the back of Oikawa’s neck to kiss him.


End file.
